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Monday, December 20, 2010

At Trinity Church in Georgia's Rome, a live Nativity Scene has been a Christmas tradition since 1957 when Mary Craven, a Children's Sunday School Teacher, suggested the project to make Christmas a more Christian event for children. Paul Carven, a Trinity member and Rome contractor built the first set.After two successful years, in 1959 Mr. Craven added 4’ by 20’ wings to the set.When Paul and Mary Craven retired, Frank Craven and Allen Storey took the responsibility for building the set and Eulaine Camp directed the production. The Live Nativity has continued as a church wide cooperative project with more people than we can name.

For Christmas 2011 Karen Candler Tucker will be directing. Last year and for 10 Years, Judy and Lamar Allen directed the event each Christmas. Frank Craven and family build the set each year! The live nativity scene is presented each December for the five nights preceeding Christmas Day. Each scene is continuous and 13 people are in the scene at any one time. All characters are live with the exception of the babe and the camel. However, Trinity was blessed with a live camel for the 2000 and 2001 event. New angel wings were added in 1999 and 2000 while Eulaine Camp was Director.

Inside activity includes helping to arrange turbans and halos on heads; heating bricks upon which cold wise men and shepherds stand; and making hot chocolate or coffee for tired workers.Kathy, deaf from birth, was a child when my family moved to Trinity in 1962. Kathy loved to play the angel. And she was, in spite of the clever way she had of seeming not to see her parents when they were about to “sign” a reprimand to her.

As I wrote the poem below, I could envision the face of Kathy and the other young people in Trinity church, those in our household and the community who loved to stand in the Nativity Scene and the adults who participate with great enthusiasm in this annual event each Christmas, December 20 through Christmas Eve on December 24.

CHRISTMAS AT TRINITY

Our Nativity scene is liveIn living color too!

With teen-aged Mary dressedOf course, in blue!

She sits beside the mangerCarol, Beth or Anne,

With Joseph standing by

There's Terry, Bill or Dan.

The shepherds stand alert

A turban on each head.

There’s John and Sam or

Allen, Cleve and Fred.

The wise men are bedecked

In jeweled crowns alike -

That hide - the tousled hair

Of Robert, Karl and Mike.

The angels, Kathy, Fran,

Deborah... truly dearBut they can only qualifyAs angels - once a year!

I watch the twisted halosAnd am amazed to feelIn spite of pomp and pageantry

Saturday, December 18, 2010

I am the mother of seven. Each one has a very special place in my heart. There are all kinds of stories to tell, as all of you who are parents know.Beth is our baby girl. I know what it is like to be the baby in a family. People like to imply or say outright that the baby girl or boy in a family is a "spoiled brat." It was said about our youngest, our son David, and it was said about Beth, our youngest daughter. When I was a child it was said about me as the youngest of 11. Not true!

Each one of our children also had a special place in their Daddy's heart and life. Beth's Daddy was a pastor and was told on the day of her birth he had plenty of time to go to church and get back to me at the hospitaHowever, Beth got in a hurry to make her appearance and came into the world at 12 noon on a Sunday, December 19, just as her father was pronouncing the benediction and hurrying out the church door to go back the few miles to the hospital. Her Daddy's first words to me after visitng the nursery to see his fifth daughter was, "She is easily the most beautiful baby in the nursery, and I heard a man say, 'Look at that baby! One can tell she is a girl - look at those beautiful lips.'" Beth was and is feminine - all woman

Beth and her younger brother, David were members of the UMC Youth choir where she was a soloist with David at the keyboard. Her high school Choral Director predicted she would "go places" with her "big beautiful" voice for such a small girl. She's only a little over 5 feet tall.Pictured below is Beth with her son Josh and daughter Amanda when they were small. The other picture is of Beth and her bother David in a concert at the Joyful Noise Supper Club.

Tuesday, December 07, 2010

I remember the early Sunday morning on December 7, 1941 when President Franklin Roosevelt came on the radio to announce that the Japanese had attacked a base in Hawaii called Pearl harbor! There are really no words to describe the feelings of surviving veterans, spouses and widows of World War II.

In the photo of the Marine Corps Platoon on the right, my husband Charles Columbus Shaw is on the first row, second from the end going left.)

They tell me that over a thousand WWII veterans are dying daily now. Those living are in their late eighties or nineties but to me they are still young men like my grandson, Josh, who is a a Captain in the Army , serving in Fort Benning now after a year in Germany and over a year in Iraq.

My generation of WWII soldiers are still, to me, those idealistic, brave, vital, young soldiers who willingly went off to war believing that they were helping to assure the safety and freedom of their families. They were willing to serve in spite of great personal sacrifice. They were certainly a part of one of the greatest generations in our country’s history.

Three of my school friends were killed in WWII, James Homer Cook, An Army Airplane Pilot, killed in the South Pacific March 17, 1944; Quentin "Red " Cole, killed in Italy , March 9, 1944; Carroll Adams, killed in France , July 27, 1944 and the brother of a school classmate , a few years older than I, J.W. Rye was killed in Africa January 21, 1943. God bless their memory.

Two of my brothers were soldiers in World War Two. Tom, served in the infantry in Europe and survived the D. Day battle that took the lives of many of his fellow soldiers. My brother, Jack, was in the Army Air Force and served in the South Pacific. These who survived the rigors of war to come back home we also remember as we celebrate and honor our brave soldiers who gave " the last full measure of their devotion."

When President Roosevelt came on the radio early Sunday morning December 7, 1941 and announced that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor, life in the towns and cities of America was forever changed. I vividly remember the terror and anxiety I felt as I listened to President Franklin Roosevelt tell of the Japanese attack. We’d never before been in war in my 18 year lifetime.

No one knew what might be next, so days were filled with fear and uncertainty. We were afraid that our mainland would be bombed next.

In the days, weeks, and months that followed, the entire population rallied around the president and our national leadership. Patriotism was strong. Citizens supported whatever the president felt should be done. The immediate response of our nation to the bombing of Pearl Harbor was somewhat like the national response to the events of September 11, 2001, when everyone pulled together and supported one another. But this kind of patriotism lasted though out the long World War II.

We were all uncertain what would happen next and wondered how our individual lives were going to be impacted. Winning the war seemed to be the only focus of the entire population. Soon the military draft was begun. Able-bodied young men were eager to sign up. It was the right and patriotic thing to do. They felt a desire, a need, and an obligation to protect their families and their country from threat and to insure our way of life. Charles was in line early – the morning they opened the draft. Because of this he got a low draft number. However, before his number came up and he could be drafted, he, like many others, opted to volunteer instead so that he could choose his branch of service. Women were never drafted, but many volunteered to serve in the WACS and WAVES.

In 1943 Charles and three other young men from our hometown, Grover Foster, Roy Connell and Charlie Miller, were sent to Cherry Point, NC. Later they were stationed in San Diego. Charlie Miller was wounded in the battle of Iwo Jima and was never well again. These four young fathers joined countless others giving years of their lives for the good of their country. When we learned that Charles was to be shipped to the South Pacific without a furlough, I went out to be with him in San Diego. On the way there (a four day train ride), I came down with scarlet fever. The next day after I arrived at the Marine base, I was quarantined for 21 days. The Marines gave Charles a furlough after all so he could come home with me before he was sent overseas.His first assignment was in the South Pacific. He served in the Makin, Caroline and Solomon Islands.

He was a Marine, and as it is with the Marines, he remained a Marine the rest of his life. He was enormously proud of his service to the country and at the same time humble about his contributions. As men do, he rarely if ever talked about it in any detail.

Back at home, food and gasoline were in short supply because the nation’s resources were going toward the war effort. The government issued ration books to citizens who then had to use the coupons to get supplies such as sugar and gasoline.

Some textile plants switched over to making strong canvas for tents instead of fabrics for civilian clothing, and some of the mills made cord which was used to reinforce tires for military vehicles. Almost all the nations factories switched from making goods for regular civilian use to making needed military supplies.

The focus of daily life was to keep abreast of what was happening “overseas.” I remember reading the newspapers from cover to cover every day to find out what was happening and discussing the events with other adults with whom I came into contact in the course of the day. All ears were tuned to the radio anytime a report or a speech came on. There were great, inspiring, and encouraging speeches by Roosevelt and Churchill.

Every night I sat down and wrote a letter to my Marine. Every morning I dressed my two little girls and walked to the Post Office to mail that letter and see if we had a letter from “Daddy.” We wrote as often as he could. He was a great letter writer.

Citizens spent whatever “free time” they had doing whatever they could to help with the war effort. Some worked for the Red Cross. Patriotic and Christian groups frequently had rallies and services to support the troops and to encourage each other.

Children’s lives were very different with few male influences in their lives, and the constant talk of war made many of them fearful. A whole generation of children lived without the benefit of their fathers. And those fathers gave up precious early years of their children’s lives in order to preserve freedom for our country.

Finally the war was over. There were community and church celebrations throughout the country. I clearly remember the celebration service our community held. The entire community gathered at the Baptist church to thank the Lord for the end of the war. It was quite a celebration!

Charles often said in the years after the war that “Buddies” in the service are not just buddies – they are brothers. They all seemed to feel a strong sense of brotherhood and connection with each other, realizing that their very lives were in each others hands.

This is what Pearl Harbor Day , Memorial Day , Veterans Day , Independence Day and every day means to me. It means recognition of the sacrifices made – and still being made by soldiers, their families, their children, and the nation as a whole.

It means appreciation for what thousands of our fellow citizens have done for me – for all of us – for their country – not just in WWII but in other wars our country. And the conflicts continue!

Our mainland was not attacked after Pearl Harbor on 12-3-1941 during World War II until it was viciously attacked on 9-11-01 by radical Islamic terrorist with nearly three thousand lives taken.

So today in 2012 we are blessed to have men and women are willing to fight in a new kind of war with hidden enemies inside and outside the United States. So we need to also remember today's living soldiers, airmen and sailors who continue to sacrifice to protect our freedoms even in some places where they are not respected.

God grant us strength, wisdom and righteousness that our freedom may be preserved and that this great country "shall not perish from the world."

Friday, November 26, 2010

The Chronicles of Ruth, my new book based on this blog, Ruthlace, is available now. You can order your copy by sending a check for $14 to R.B. Shaw, P.O. Box 2092, Rome Georgia 30164. The price includes postage.

The book will be available from Amazon and other commercial outlets in a few weeks. It will cost $14.98. So this is your opportunity to get your copy at a discount.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Our beautiful Lynda Joan is the second of our seven children born to my husband and me. Words and/or pictures are inadequate to tell how much each of our children fills my heart to overflow with love and how much

Joan has a special place in my heart as she did in her Daddy's heart. Joan calls her Web Log, " Daddy's Roses." (Picture on right is Joan and Jim's 6 grandchildren)

There are all kinds of stories to tell about Joan as a child and as a beautiful and outstanding adult. The picture to the right shows Joan as "A Georgia Peach" published in the Atlanta Sunday paper.

Joan was a rising senior in High School when we uprooted her from Griffin High School, a small city school where her friends, including a “boy friend” lived. We moved to Ellijay, a small mountain town in North Georgia. If you have ever had to move a teen away from friends you know Joan was not a happy camper.

Ellijay was(and is ) a wonderful town but a town we had never heard of in 1958 when my husband, an ordained Itinerant Elder in the Methodist Church was sent to pastor a church there.

The word, “itinerant“ in the Methodist Church then as now means “traveling” and pastors then even more than now were ask to “travel” to any place where the Bishop and Cabinet thought would best serve the overall church. Without much notice, but with committment to Christ and the church we were assigned to The Church in Ellijay. As an aside, an old friend from Charles home town was a quaint never married nurse who was the epitomy of the Hollywood stereotype of “Old Maid. When our wonderful "Miss Weaver" heard we were moving to Ellijay she remarked, “I've heard they sure mash a lot of corn up there.” We did not see much evidence of "mashed corn" in our four year tenure in Gilmer county! We did meet some of the most oustanding and good people I have ever had the privilege of knowing.

The Annual North Georgia Conference moving day was a "fruit basket turn over" day. One pastor family moved out of a Methodist Parsonage and another moved in, sometimes just minutes apart. So with our moving van (actually a truck) following, we were finally on our way to a town we had never seen.

We had lived in Griffin four happy years so we had a week of sad good byes and “ going away parties” and packing and cleaning. Moving out of a parsonage and getting it ready for another family to move in immediately is work, work, work! The picture to the right was Joan holding a rabbit, raised for food but never eaten!(The picture below of me holding Joan with Janice 2 years older is one of my favorite of Joan as a baby.)So Charles and I, committed to the Itinerancy, were happy to finally be on our way. The younger children were excited about “moving to the mountains and kept saying things like, “Mama, are those our mountains” as we drove nearer and nearer to a place which did finally become "our mountains and our home town."

Finally we got to the Ellijay city limits. Charles, in his own exuberant way said, “The population of Ellijay has now increased by nine.“ Joan, who had been very quiet finally spoke, “It has probably doubled.”

But Joan adjusted greatly to her last year of High School there, was elected treasurer of her Senior Class and even had the fun being on the Homecoming Court (Homecoming queen) and a cheer leader for Gilmer High. She , along with all of us made life long friends with some of the finest people this world ever produced.

The picture below is of her wedding to Jim Turrentine at Trinity Methodist Church where her daddy, Charles Shaw was pastor. Her sisters Janice, Carol and Deborah were among the bridesmaids. Joan is a wife, mother of a daughter and son, Lyn and Steven , gifted school teacherand now the loving and buy grandmothersix Picture on left shows Joan and Jim's six grandchildren. Picture on right is Joan with her of her four ganddaughters, Natalie and Brianne Davis.

Friday, November 19, 2010

One of the first words we teach to our children is ”Thank You.” When someone does something for them or gives them a gift, we say, “Honey, what do you say? Say Thank you.” "Tell Aunt Mary, ‘Thank you.’…tell Grandmother 'thank you'.” And when they finally say, “Thank You,” in their little baby voice, we hug them and tell them how sweet they are.

The season we are in has been called “Hallow-thank-mas". It starts each year before Halloween with increasingly elaborate Halloween decorations and continues through the many festivities of Christmas. Sometimes it seems Thanksgiving get squeezed out.Thanksgiving Day as a Holiday began in the fall of 1621…as the Pilgrim Fathers and Mothers in America were facing their second winter. Half of them had died that first winter. The wheat and the peas they had brought with them failed to germinate. At one point the daily rations were 5 grains of corn.

When Fall came in 1622, it looked like the few who had survived that dreadful first winter would have enough food and shelter to survive a second winter.They still had problems...they had not reached Utopia. But they were filled with gratitude to God. And that level of gratitude was to carry them a long way.

I heard a Presbyterian minister tell about a time when he and a friend took a bicycle tour of Hawaii one Summer. They pedaled up a hill just as a rainbow arched across the horizon and to make it even more awesome it was just as a cooling rain began to fall while the sun was still shining!And in awe, he turned to his friend and said, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could bottle this up and bring it out some dreary November day. The friend replied, ”You need to do what my father taught me. My father told me to “remember my goose bumps.”

This is what the Apostle Paul did. When Paul was an old man, writing from a Philippians jail, chained to guards, he kept remembering and rejoicing, ”In the Lord.”This is what many of us do as in memory we have sunshine even in the storms of life.This is what Moses reminded the children of Israel to do.

The Israelites had been wandering in the desert for 40 years. Finally they are standing on the verge of Jordon and Moses is telling them what kind of people they are to be if they are to keep the freedom God had given them by bringing them out of slavery in Egypt. They were to remember. They were to memorize their history and teach it to their children.We see them standing in the door of the Promised Land recounting their history in a beautiful liturgy. They are reciting, "A homeless Aramean about to perish was our ancestors and we had bad times. We were enslaved ... we were oppressed ... we were afflicted.”“But we have a God! God brought us out of Egypt with an outstretched hand...We are no longer a “no people”...we are God’s people”

Back in the 1950's, when my husband was a student pastor, he had driven to church to preach about 90 miles away. The children and I usually went with him for a week-end stay in a non furnished five room “parsonage with a path”. But that is another story to tell later.That Thanksgiving Sunday in 1952 I was home with a sick baby. I had lost a great deal of sleep and it was a cold and dreary day in a small apartment on a college campus.

A little after eleven, the baby was asleep and I decided to turn on the radio (no TV) while washing the dishes and cleaning up the kitchen.A preacher was in the midst of sermon about things for which to be thankful. He said, “Have you ever thanked God for dirty dishes.” And tired as I was, I thought, “as a matter of fact, I don’t believe I ever have” But another thought followed and I realized …“If one has dirty dishes that means they have eaten ... People with no food do not have dishes to wash.” Have you ever thought that the beggar out on the park bench has no dishes to wash, no floors to mop or furniture to dust?The preacher read a poem written by a teen aged girl. I have never seen the poem in print but remember it as something like this:

“Thank God for the dirty dishes

For they’ve a story to tell

And from the stack I have to wash

We’ve eaten very well.

While folks in other lands,

Are glad for just a crust

From this stack of evidence

God’s mighty good to us.”

Thanking God for the things we usually take for granted is a step in the right direction on Thanksgiving Day and every day. A good place to start is to begin with zero and move up to the level of being grateful for ordinary things of life, food to eat, a clean bed, a warm house, fresh apples, turnips greens and cornbread, the smell of flowers, a Christmas tree, a church. And freedom!

I think I may have gotten a new idea of what Zero is when I saw women in Afghanistan, a few years ago, being thankful for just being able to uncover their faces and men being free to shave or grow a bread as they wish.God has made beauty and not just utility. Food could have all been tasteless and flowers without color or smell. Thank God. I believe it was C.S. Lewis who said “there is a profound democracy in creation…there are some things we all inherit.”

All of us, rich and poor, men and women, have inherited the possibility of knowing God through Jesus Christ who has broken down the wall of separation and offers us life here and life eternal in the next life.Helen Keller, blind and deaf, said, “I thank God for my handicaps. Through them I have found myself, my work, my God.” Whatever it take, find God.

One source of ingratitude is lack of thought! “Think” in the Anglo-Saxon is related to “Thank.” A “thank” is a “thought.” To “think” is to “thank”The Psalmist tells us “Bless the Lord, O my souls and forget not all His benefits,” Forget not…remember. Thoughtful people are thankful people!

Saturday, November 06, 2010

There are really no words to describe my feelings and probably the feelings of many widows of World War II veterans as we contemplate Veterans Day, 2011 on 11-11-11!

They tell me that over 1000 WWII veterans are dying daily now. Those living are in their late eighties or nineties. But to me they are still young men like my grandson, Josh, who is serving in the Army now at Fort Benning after a year in Iraq and another in Germany. The photo below is of Cpt. Joshua Hearn holding the hand of his little daughter, Emma, as they walk away from the Cemetery where his friend and fellow soldier, Cpt. Kyle Comfort, was laid to rest. Captain Comfort was killed in the Helmand Province of Afganistan on May 2, 2010.

This story of Captain Comfort's death in 2010 brings tears to my eyes. He reminds us of the "greatness of this generation" of soldiers. Comfort and his troups were out on patrol. One of the privates stepped on a mine. Kyle saw it and pushed the private to safety taking the blast of the IED himself. He managed to pull himself out of the hole that has been created by the blast...crawling on his elbows because his legs were blown off. His troops said their Captian yelled, "They got my legs but I'm okay." They got him on an evacuation helicopter, but he bled to death within 15 minutes of the blast. Captian Kyle Comfort left a wife and a six month old daughter. Looking back to 1941 when I was 18, the World War II veterans are still, to me, those idealistic, brave, vital, young soldiers who willingly went off to war after the Pearl Harbor Attack believing they were helping to maintain the safety and freedom of their families. Some were willing to serve in spite of great personal sacrifice. They were certainly a part of one of the greatest generations in our country’s history.

Four of my school friends were killed in WWII: May God bless their memory as we continue to recognize their sacrifice made in 1943 and 1944:James Homer Cook was an airplane pilot whose airplane was shot down in the South Pacific on March 17, 1944. Quinton " Red "Cole was killed fighting the enemy in Italy on March 9, 1944. Carroll Adams was killed in Frances July 27, 1944. J.W, Rye was gave his life in Africa on January 21, 1943.

My brother, Tom (John Thomas Baird), served in the infantry in Europe. He and his wife, Rowena, married just before he went into the Army. Rowena lived with my mother, her new mother-in-law and gave birth to their son Jack Thomas Baird while Tom was away. My brother, Jack (Jackson Irvin Baird), served in the Army Air force in the South Pacific. These are just some of the brave men whom we honor this Veteran’s Day.

When President Roosevelt came on the radio early Sunday morning December 7, 1941 and announced that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor, life in the towns and cities of America was forever changed. I vividly remember the terror and anxiety I felt. We’d never before been in war in my lifetime. No one knew what might be next, so days were filled with fear and uncertainty. We were afraid that our mainland would be bombed next.

In the days, weeks, and months that followed, the entire population rallied around the president and our national leadership. Patriotism was strong. Citizens supported whatever the president felt should be done. The immediate response of our nation to the bombing of Pearl Harbor was somewhat like the national response to the events of September 11, 2001, when everyone pulled together and supported one another. This kind of public response lasted until th end of the war in August of 1945. We were all uncertain what would happen next and wondered how our individual lives were going to be impacted. Winning the war seemed to be the only focus of the entire population.

Soon the military draft was begun. Women were never drafted, but many volunteered to serve in the WACS and WAVES. Able-bodied young men were eager to sign up. It was the right and patriotic thing to do. They felt a desire, a need, and an obligation to protect their families and their country from threat and to insure our way of life. My husband Charles got a low draft number. However, before his number came up and he could be drafted, Charles, like many others, opted to volunteer instead so that he could choose his branch of service.

In 1943 Charles and three of his buddies from his hometown chose the Marines, Grover Foster, Charlie Miller and Roy Gunnell. The four of them were sent to Cherry Point, NC. Later they were stationed in San Diego. Charlie Miller was wounded in the battle of Iwo Jima. Although he did live to come home , Charlie was never well again. These young fathers joined countless others giving years of their lives for the good of their country.

When we learned that Charles was to be shipped to the South Pacific without a furlough, I went out to be with him in San Diego. It was four day train ride crowded with soldiers. Soon after I arrived at the Marine base, I came down with Scarlet Fever and was quarantined for 21 days in the Naval Hospital. The only way Charles and I saw each other was when he came out to the hospital and sat on a ledge outside my room and talked throught the window. Charles first assignment overseas was in the South Pacific in the Caroline Islands.

Back at home, food and gasoline were in short supply because the nation’s resources were going toward the war effort. The government issued ration books to citizens who then had to use the coupons to get supplies such as sugar and gasoline.

In additon to all the "Bomber Plants,"other plants to build airplanes and supplies needed to wage war sprung up all over the nation. Textile mills in the South switched over to making strong canvas for tents instead of fabrics for civilian clothing. Some of the mills made cord which was used to reinforce tires for military vehicles. Almost all the cotton mills in the South, I am told, switched from making goods for regular civilian use to making needed military supplies.

The focus of daily life was to keep abreast of what was happening “overseas.” I remember reading the newspapers from cover to cover every day to find out what was happening and discussing the events with other adults with whom I came into contact in the course of the day. All ears were tuned to the radio anytime a report or a speech came on. There were great, inspiring, and encouraging speeches by Roosevelt and Churchill.

Every night I sat down and wrote a letter to my Marine. Every morning I dressed my two little girls and walked to the Post Office to mail that letter and see if we had a letter from “Daddy.” We often did. He was a great letter-writer.My two small children and I lived near my parents-in-law and always stopped by their house with any news from their oldest son. They had two other sons in Service. James was in the Army. Grady Jr. was in the Army Air Frorce.

American citizens spent whatever “free time” they had doing whatever they could to help with the war effort. Some worked for the Red Cross. Patriotic and Christian groups frequently had rallies and services to support the troops and to encourage each other. Oe thing that bothers me about Captian Kyle Comfort's death and the many others reported daily now is that, it seem to be, we, as a nation is not on a wartime basis as we were during World War II.Finally the war was over. There were community and church celebrations throughout the country. I clearly remember the celebration service our community held. The entire community gathered at the Baptist church in Charles's hoe town to thank the Lord for the end of the war. Charles was home on furlough at the time, and our complete family attended together. It was quite a celebration!

Charles had to return to Cherry Point and be mustered out before he could come home for good.

Charles often said in the years after the war that “Buddies” in the service are not just buddies – they are brothers. They all seemed to feel a strong sense of brotherhood and connection with each other, realizing that their very lives were in each other’s hands.

This is what Veteran’s Day each year means to me. It means paying individual tribute to those who gave their young lives. It means recognition of the individual loss and sacrifices made – by the soldiers, their families, their children, and the nation as a whole. War is about individual persons! I posted the death date of young men from my school and home town to focus on personal loss. It also means appreciation for what thousands of our fellow citizens have done for me – for US – for their country – not just in WWII but in other wars our country has fought to preserve our freedoms and the freedoms of people throughout the world. I pray that they shall not have lived and died in vain.

Wednesday, November 03, 2010

Alas, the last of our exciting Georgia snow melted from a shady spot on my patio a few days ago. Pictured above is my young friend, Raiford Crews playing in the brief 2010 Georgia snow.

One of my favorite Web Logs is a lady, who, among her many other talents is her professional looking photography. Her post sometimes carries pictures of SNOW from her kitchen window “all fresh and new and very, very white!” She writes from Michigan, the land of snow.

I have been a widow for since 1986. For several years, I went out with a man who had retired and with his wife had moved from Michigan to Georgia. His wife had been dead a couple of years when I met him at a church conference. He had a great sense of humor. He told me they moved to Georgia because in Georgia he "did not have to shovel sunshine."

At this point in my life, I am glad to not have to shovel snow or try to walk on ice or snow. But so many of our best family memories (and pictures) with our children are tied up with the few snow storms here in the “land of sunshine and cotton.”

My husband was always as excited as the children when we had a rare snow. He would gather up the children and some hastily makeshift sleds and hurry to Shorter Hill or some other special place. If there was only a little snow, we all pitched in to make a snow man.

My job was often to stay home, put out a clean sheet to catch fresh snow for snow ice cream, dry out wet gloves, serve hot soup and keep the home fires burning.

So, school children and teachers, while you are watching the Georgia skies and wishing for a snow day, remember, " you do not have to shovel sunshine!"

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

A few copies of Life With Wings, publised in 2010 is available for purchase!"Life with Wings includes some of Ruth's best poems and homilies, along with recipes collected by Ruth during 35 years as a pastor's wife in the North Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church."The book is available at Barnes and Noble, on Amazon and from Lulu Marketplace for $10.95 per copy.

A limited number of books are also available for $10.00, postage free special from Ruth Baird Shaw at her home address in Rome, Georgia. Click the photo above to link directly to the Life With Wings page on Lulu.com.Paperback, 134 pagesPrice: $10.95Ships in 3–5 business daysFREE Shipping on orders over $19.95 on Lulu.com (some restrictions apply)

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Reading Miriam Neff’s article, “The Widow’s Might” (Christianity Today, January 2008) brought tears to my eyes. Neff’s husband, whom she married while still a teen, died after 41 years. You can read more about Miriam Neff at her website, Widow Connection.

Miriam Neff tells us that widows are of the fastest growing demographic in the United States. “We are targeted by new home builders and surveyed by designers. We are a lucrative niche for health and beauty products, and financial planners invite us to dinners. It is no wonder the marketers are after us: 800,000 join our ranks every day.”

“Loneliness and solitude are not descriptive enough of the space that becomes the cocoon of the widow.”

Many of us identify with Neff. Recently, when a retired minister died, the email I received gave the address of the daughter and the granddaughter so that condolences could be written but apparently did not even think to give the address of his elderly wife. The wife, now a widow is the one left alone. The rest of the family, of course are grieving. But the widow’s is grieving while also seeing her life changed dramatically.

Studies show that widows lose 75 percent of their friendship network when they lose a spouse.

But, as Miriam Neff points out, we are not invisible to God. There are 103 Scripture passages referencing widows. Widows are close to the heart of God and in James 1:27, we read that God judges others by the way they treat widows.

Saturday, October 02, 2010

In 1979, Charles and I visited the Holy Land. On Sunday morning we drove out to the Eastern slope of the Mount of Olives for a worship service. We had a breathtaking view of Jerusalem across the Kidron Valley.Alvis Waite from the South Georgia Conference United Methodist Church read the scripture and Charles preached.

Afterward we made a pilgrimage to see Lazarus’s tomb and the site of the home of Martha, Mary and Lazarus.

Who could visit Bethany and not write something about Mary and Martha?

Mary and Martha.

When I was a childI loved the story bestOf Mary and Martha.When Jesus was their guestMartha preparedThe bread and the meat,While Mary kept sittingAt Jesus feet.

Somehow in the reading,The thought was inferredThat women, like childrenShould be seen and not heard!

And I thought like a Martha,Stayed in my place,Tended my household,Took care of my face.

One day reading furtherWith a strangely warm heart,I heard Jesus sayMary has chosen that good part.

How I long to be MaryDisciple devout,While I’m more often MarthaCumbered about.

Much hurry and servingI stay on the . . . run,For a Martha’s workIs never all done.

One day reading closerIn lovely retreat,I learned even MarthaCan sit at His feet!

Monday, September 20, 2010

"What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the over-abundance of information sources that might consume it."

So said Herbert Alexander Simon (1915-2001), American social scientist, economist and Nobel Laureate.

When I read the above quote, it occurred to me we could substitute the word "Blog" or "internet" for "information" in the piece. I sometimes think we are all drowning in the over-abundance of information at our finger tips.

My father died when I was nine. My mother kept his memory alive in my mind by telling me many things about him. She thought he, Benjamin Wilson Baird, was very wise and often mentioned to me his beliefs and his understanding of issues.

In Mama's amazing love and respect for this man, she seemed to think her husband and my father, Benjamin Wilson Baird, had the last word on matters of faith and values.

For example, she told me one time, in conversation about theology, "I don't think your daddy would agree with that."

In conversation Mama mentioned to me about a time early on when their church was questioning about the influence of "movies" or "picture shows" on the lives of adults as well as children. Mama told me about my father's view on this issue about whether or not Christians should be spending time at the movies.

This was before Hollywood's binge on violence and gratuitous sex. Even before Clark Gable and Gone With the Wind's famous "damn." We have a different set of issues today.

Anyway, Mama said Papa did not see movies as a problem as such for Christians to see and enjoy. The major problem with movies ,Wilson Baird thought, she told me, was our taking time away from more important ways one could be spending our precious allotment of time which brings us back to the quote by Alexander Simon.

Psalms 90 reminds us that in the eyes of God, "1000 years is as a day when it is past," and goes on to tell us "so teach us to number our days." If we should live to be 100, it is a brief time in the light of eternity. So life here is a preparation for life eternally.

But this does not mean we are to keep our noses to the grindstone. We all need recreation and leisure time. From my mother's point of view, Papa had a good sense of humor and they found much to enjoy and laugh about.

But we have to make some choice about how we spend our precious allotment of time.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

September is Childhood Cancer Month! We neeed to get serious about raising money to fund reseach into a cure for Childhood Cancer!

It has been over two years since our precious great -grand-daughter, Lily at age seven was diagnosed with Pre-B ALL (Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia) on December 1, 2008.

Lily has learned a lot since this picture was taken. She has shown incredible courage beyond her years.

I recently filled in for the pastor at Beech Creek United Methodist Church, who took a well-deserved day off to visit family. While at Beech Creek I met a beautiful 4 year old boy named Nick who was born with brittle bones (osteogenesis imperfecta). In fact ,Nick was baptised by Dr. Bob Ozment signifying he is a child of God until he reaches the age of accountability when he can accept Jesus for himself. Nick is a beautiful and intelligent child. I do not know his complete diagnosis but, depending on the severity, osteogenesis imperfecta can significantly shorten one lifespan. This is only one of Childhood diseases we do to do serious reseach to find the cause and cure.

As Lily's family, we have become acquainted with more and more children, like Nick, suffering from some form of cancer or terminal illness! We ask for prayer for Nick and Lily and all these children and to consider supporting vital research to find causes and cures.

Lily's doctor explained leukemia by telling her that the leukemia cells are like weeds that crowd out the good flowers in a garden. Lily has passed some important milestones in her treatments in order to kill all the weeds so that only healthy and beautiful flowers will grow in "Lily's Garden." Lily and her family are reaching out and working and raising funds to find a cure for childhood cancers that attack children in frightening numbers.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

My father died during the great depression in 1932. When the Japanese attached Pearl harbor in 1941 and President Roosevelt declared war, my mother worked as a weaver in the Osprey Mill in Porterdale Georgia.
The Cord Weave Shop looms ran 24 hours a day During World War II to weave the heavy cloth used in making truck and tank tires.

Mama, an intelligent and hard working woman became quite expert as a weaver in the Cord Weave Shop. She seemed to be one of the few people who knew all about how to thread the warps and looms to begin a new supply of heavy cord material. As I understand it, when a bolt of cloth was cut off the looms to be bundled up and shipped out, a new bolt of cloth could be begun in a relatively simple way. But to begin a different width of cloth required the loom to be threaded in a different way.

During World War II, with so many men away in Europe or the South Pacific, the word went out to recruit everyone who would work in the textile plants. I worked for a few months and was assigned to work in the Cortd Weave Shop and saw for myself Mama was exceedingly knowledgeable about all the workings of the warps and weaving of the heavy cloth.

Mama was no longer young and had deep concern her two youngest sons who were everseas in the Army. My brother Tom was in the Army Infantry in Europe and Jack was in the Army Air Force serving in the South Pacific. Mama was working in the Textile plant Mondays through Friday. She handled the massive looms with energy and skill. The woven cord was used in the production of tires for trucks and tanks as well as for tents.

Long after Mama retired and was no longer on the payroll, on several ocassions the Bibb Manufacturing Company officials sent a car to her home on Hazel Street to take Mama back into the Osprey Mill to thread the looms for a new batch of cloth. She was always happy to go back into the building to thread the looms and teach the skill to other weavers.I do not remember that Mama was ever paid for this service. But to Ieula Dick Baird, the lady who collected food for families "out of work, " the women who helped deliver babies or visit the sick when the need arose, the lady who told me we came for "good stock," this deed was typical of her. So going back to her old job in the Cord Weave Shop to help someone learn the skill was just another neighborly thing to do.

Thursday, August 19, 2010

The Christian Bible include the books of the Hebrew Bible, but arranged in a different order: Jewish Scripture ends with the people of Israel restored to Jerusalem and the temple and the Christian arrangement ends with the book of the prophet Malachi.

When I was a child, I learned to name all 66 books of the Christian Bible in order from Genesis (The first book of the 39 books of the Old Testament) to Revelation (the last of the 27 books in the New Testament.) As with most things we learn early, I can still name the 66 books of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation.

The Old Testament or the Jewish Bible, or Tanakh, is divided into three parts:

1. The five books of the Torah ("teaching" or "law") comprise the origins of the Israelite nation, its laws and its covenant with the God of Israel;

Christian Bible is divided into two parts. The first is called the Old Testament, containing the 39 books of Hebrew Scripture.The second portion is called theNew Testament and contains 27 books. The first Four, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are The Gospels , telling the story of Jesus. A Physician named Luke writes the book of Luke and Acts, telling the story of the early church and the conversion of Jewish persecutor of the church named Saul who was converted in a vision of Christ on the Damascus Road and became the great apostle Paul. Paul became the preacher to the Gentiles and the author of most of the New Testament.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

MUSIC OF THE SPHERES:My mother, Ieula Ann Dick Baird was born in 1885. She was married to Benjamin Wilson Baird in 1903 and widowed in 1932.

Mama was only 18 when she married this man in his 40s. I suppose psychologists would say she was looking for a “father figure” as her father had died when she was only two years old. However, It proved to be a very happy marriage.

My father (a devout Christian and articulate churchman) became seriously ill with a heart-kidney ailment when I was eight and died when i was nine. Papa had been bedridden for nearly a year before he died. Mama cared for him tenderly. She adored this man and he treasured her. She grieved his passing as long as she lived.I have seen the love in her eyes as she stood looking at his framed picture on her mantle above the fireplace. I remember all the positive words she told me about him as I was growing up.

A few years before she died, my mother told me this story. She said she had cried inconsolable for many days after my father's death and had not been able to sleep. Then one night, Papa came back to her in a dream that seemed to her more like a vision. Mama told me how he talked with her, telling her all about heaven and the music in heaven and the hymn that was being sung when he arrived in his Heavenly Home. Then he sang the amazingly beautiful hymn to her (my parents both loved to sing). My mother said she thought it was the most wonderful hymn she had ever heard. She told how she had joyfully sang the words over and over in her dream and felt sure it was a song she would never forget!Mama told me that after singing to her the beautiful hymn being sung in heaven when he arrived, Papa put his hands on her shoulder, as he had done many times in life. Papa then told her of his love and told her to dry her tears and go to sleep, because he was alright and she would be too. Mama said, for the first time since her husband's passing, she went soundly to sleep in peace, still feeling his hand on her shoulder and singing the words of the hymn over and over.

My intelligent and practical mother awoke refreshed the next morning and remembered the story above as I related here. But she told me she could not remember a word or a note of the hymn heaven was singing when her precious husband arrived there. She remembered only that it was the most beautiful hymn she had ever heard!

The Apostle Paul wrote: “No eye has seen, nor ear heard, neither has it entered into the human heart what God has prepared for those who love him."(1 Corinthians 2:9).

Saturday, August 07, 2010

Georgia Harkness, Ruth Rogers and Me.I went back to school after my children were grown. In one of my early history classes at Georgia State University, a professor showed a great deal of interest in a paper I had submitted and asked, “What do you plan to be?”

The question of “to be” was unexpected. I had “already been.” I was an older “sometimes” student, having now raised seven precious children was now pursuing a hobby of "education."However, when the question of “to be” came up, for strange reason I thought about Georgia Harkness and Ruth Rogers. I suppose they were the only woman theologians I knew about at that time. Far back in the recesses of my mind I must have been slowly preparing for Christian ministry.

As a lifelong Methodist I had read Harkness articles and had even filed some of her work when ministry for me was beyond my thoughts or wildest dreams.Dr. Georgia Harkness (photo left) was the theologian who kept holding the Methodist General Conference’s feet to the fire until in 1956 they voted for full ministerial rights for all qualified women. Her many books and articles as a Professor of Theology provide a wealth of information about her long career as a theologian, author, and clergywoman.Harkness believed and taught that women’s rights is more than a matter of justice, It is also a theological issue. What does the church really believe about the Christian God? The theological themes that Harkness expresses in her writings were also lived out in the experiences of Ruth Rogers and other Christian women who spent much of their talents and energy in trying to find a place to serve in answer to a strong calling from God.

On the issue of ordination for women, Harkness believed that ordination with all rights and responsibilities belonged to women as well as men and offered three reasons. Her first reason was a Biblical one. In Jesus Christ all barriers that separate persons from one another have been destroyed. She quotes Paul’s well-known passage in Galations that “there is neither Jew nor Greek, bond or free, male or female, for all are one in Christ Jesus.” (Galations 3:28)

Harkness further noted that ordination for women could be argued from a “practical” standpoint. She pointed out that a portion of the church’s constituency was alienated and the gifts and graces of women were being lost to the mission of the church to the world. The third reason as a spiritual one. Harkness pointed out that the richest and most intimate experiences in the life of the Christian are those that have to do with church membership, the sacraments, marriage, baptism, and bereavement. She said that so long as a person is debarred by reason of gender from acting as an agent in the church in these high spiritual moments, no matter what other opportunities are opened to her, she is debarred from the largest Christian service.

Yet, Harkness remained aloof to issues regarding inclusive language. The personal nature of God, for Harkness, seem to demand a personal pronoun reference. She said, “I see little sense in trying to change the terminology of the ages.”

At the heart of her theology seems to be a “responsible concern for persons everywhere and in every condition.” This includes men! Her idea of the partnership of the sexes emerges whereby the goal of shaping society in the direction of the kingdom of God relies upon mutuality and good will between Christian men and women.

In that same historical year of 1956, Dr. Ruth Rogers was the first woman to be ordained elder in the North Georgia Conference of the Methodist Church and my husband, a rising senior at Chandler School of Theology was ordained deacon.

Although my husband and I had sat in large Methodist conferences with her, I had never met Ruth Rogers until I, as Atlanta-College Park District Communication Chairperson in 1988, interviewed her for an article in the Wesleyan Christian Advocate.

The Rev. Dr. Ruth Rogers(photo to the left -made in 1958) believed, as do I, that the call from God is what makes a preacher, not whether one is a man or a woman. The deaths of two close family members had a great impact on her. Ruth Rogers had adopted a nephew, but in 1945 lost him at the age of 14 to bone cancer. Among his last words to her, “Aunt Ruth, you are going to have to do my preaching.” Then in 1947, her beloved mother died in her arms saying, “Don’t you see Christ? I can see him. He’s right on the edge of a crowd . . . He’s opening the eyes of the blind. "

After her son Billy’s death, Dr. Rogers did a great deal of thinking “and more praying” about it, but was not quite willing “to take on the enmity...” to answer the call to preach. But after the experience of Christ at her mother’s death bed, Rogers, who came from a family of Methodist ministers, said: “I felt I had to tell the story whether I wanted to or not.” After she preached at a District Conference, the vote was unanimous to accept her call. But she was to learn that the “enmity against women as preachers did not stop there.

When I interviewed her, Rogers was 84 years old and walked on crutches because of a fall on ice at the front of a church some years before. But she still had a twinkle in her eyes and a lovely smile and she indicated to me that she has forgiven those who rejected her for whatever reason.

And I? I was a happy wife, a devoted mother and an enthusiastic teacher of Woman's mission studies and Sunday School Bible lessons! I was unaware that Georgia Harkness and Ruth Rogers were paving roads over which I would one day be called to travel.

How can I briefly tell the story that led to my identity as pastor and as theology student? (photo taken in 2004)The path that led to that incredible day in December, 1986 when I first stood in the pulpit of a United Methodist Church as “pastor” and to a bewildering day in Chandler’s Commons in August 1987 as “student.”

Go with me briefly to my childhood. I am nine years old and my father is dying. He has been ill for a year with a heart and kidney ailment. He is a committed Christian. Earlier, he had put his arm around me as i stood by his bedside and told me to never leave our yards without "leave" from my mother. Then he reminded me to always tell the truth and went on to explain the importance of truth. I am profoundly impressed by the faith my wise and good father lived. I am thinking, “When I grow up, I want to be that kind of Christian.”

I found it interesting to note that both Georgia Harkness and Ruth Rogers were also profoundly affected by a dying parent’s last words and/or actions. Harkness had told in her autobiography about returning home to nurse her father in his final illness. He had asked about her many successful books and remarked, “. . . but I wish you would write more about Jesus Christ.” Harkness understood these remarks to be a “directive from an eternal realm” and saw this experience as a turn in her thinking and writing to a more “Christ-centered approach to religious truth.” (Gilbert, p. 18)

Two years after my father’s death, I was sitting with my mother in a worship service at our small town Methodist Church, the same church in which I had been baptized as a small baby. The congregation was singing an old gospel song entitled “At the Cross.” The song later fell into disrepute because of an offensive verse that went like this: “Would he (Christ) devote his sacred head for such a worm as I?” The Hymnal committee later deleted “such a worn as I” and substituted “sinner such as I.” I do not know about changing the words of a poem after the author's death but I ,along with the hymnal committee did not know any “worm like” people. We didn’t even lock our doors at night in my home town. The Psalmist had written that we were created just a little lower than angels!

But one phrase did capture my attention during the singing and I began to ponder the first theological question I ever remember giving thought to. It is a big one. As the singing continued, I was listening to: “Was it for crimes that I have done, Christ died upon the tree?” I thought, “How could my sins today have anything to do with the death of Jesus on the cross nearly 2000 years ago?” Yes! The mystery of God in Jesus Christ became a real part of my life ... my story.”

This was before Hitler, the Holocaust and World War II. The New Deal was beginning to work. Education was going to do away with crime, disease, and discrimination. Later, when I read about the extent of Hitler’s crimes I thought back to that day in church. “Is it possible,” I thought with great sadness, “For human beings to act like ‘worms?’” The jury is in. Education and prosperity are not enough. Germany and Japan excelled in both education and prosperity when they plunged us into World War II. Only Christ can solve our sin problem.

Becoming a preacher is the last thing I even expected or aspired to do. Charles recognized my call to preach early on and mentioned it to me before i said anything to him about it... in 1975. He as pastor and the church (Park Street UMC) recommended me for license to preach, which was then and still is the starting point for Ordained Ministers in our United Methodist Church.

Charles began to have health problems and after a second heart attack and bi-pass surgery he retired on disability in 1983. A year later the District Superintendent needed someone to fill in at Rico Church in Palmetto and called one Sunday morning and asked Charles to go down that morning to preach and conduct the service. He did and kept preaching every Sunday except on two occasions when he asked me to go down and preach.

Charles preached his last sermon the first Sunday in advent in 1986 and 3 days later "went home to be with the Lord." Two weeks later the D.S. called me and told me the congregation had asked to have me appointed to finish the conference year. The Bishop and Cabinet agreed. Would I do it? After much prayer, I knew this was an open door the Lord wanted me to walk through.

In spite of grief and responsibilities, I began as their pastor the 4th Sunday in Advent and continued to serve as pastor at Rico while I started and finished the work for a Master of Divinity degree from Candler School of Theology at Emory.

During my years of "telling the good news of Jesus" behind a pulpit instead of a Sunday School classroom or a Missionary platform, I have sought to learn how to communicate this good news of Jesus. The love and power of God in the hearts of people is able to bring people together across all kinds of barriers as Paul tells tells the people of Galatia in Galations 3:22-28. "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female ; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. "(Galations 3:28)

Ordination is not a right to which any of us, male or female are entitled. It is an unmerited call and an unexpected gift of the Lord's mercy. It is not a call to authority but a call to service.BIBLIOGRAPHYGilbert, Paula Elizabeth. Choice of the Greater Good: The Christian Witness of Georgia Harkness. Graduate School of Duke University, 1984.Harkness, Georgia. Religious Living. Association Press, New York, 1957.Harkness, Georgia. The Church and Its Laity. Abingdon Press, New York, Nashville, 1962.Harkness, Georgia. Grace Abounding, Abingdon Press, Nashville, 1969.Harkness, Georgia. Christian Ethics, Abingdon Press, New York 1957.Harkness, Georgia. The Ministry of Reconciliation. Abingdon Press, New York, 1971.Harkness, Georgia. Women in Church and Society: A Historical and Theological Inquiry. Abingdon Press, Nashville. 1972.Johnson, Helen. “Georgia Harkness: She Made Theology Understandable.”